Is Digg for Americans Only? … Is the Internet?

My boyfriend recently had a little encounter with some Americans on Digg. It seems that they had a problem with his some of his comments on and this article regarding the affordability of hybrid cars. You can find his responsein the first comment with the username “jeevesbond” (dugg down and out of view, use “show comment” to see it). Now, surely his comments were going to be a little controversial to Americans. I wouldn’t have posted that there, but the response is what was interesting.

The first is a comment by “koopa”, a few posts down who says “This is digg.com, not digg.co.uk” (with +38 diggs). A response stating that it’s not “digg.co.us” was dugg down to -14. Another post agreeing with Liam’s comments (see posts by “therealduckie”) was dugg down to -24. A second post in agreement, stating that “My point is that it *assumes* everyone is living in the US (which most people in the world don’t). Studies have found that in the UK hybrids are cost-effective (because of our higher fueld prices), I was just trying to present a worldwide view” was also dugg down.

So what is up with that? Do Americans just not want to hang out with people from other countries? Is Digg for Americans only? I imagine the creators of the site didn’t intend it to be that way but it seems that many of the users of the site do.

Now, I haven’t been visiting that site for very long, and I mostly just use it to keep up with the news, so I’m not really the one to talk about Digg in particular. Maybe they do intend for it to be for Americans only, I don’t know. The general sentiment is what’s interesting to me – the idea that Americans see themselves as separate from others on the internet and in some cases don’t want to interact with us.

This is quite shocking to me because I thought the days of a segregated internet were over. Back when I first started out online I encountered a lot of people who seemed to think that only Americans were on the interent. They’d use words like “this country” or “the (Olympic) team”. eCommerce sites would regularly not ship outside of the US and wouldn’t feel the need to communicate that to visitors. I had “Proud to be Canadian” in my signature for years just to remind Americans that people from other countries existed.

A few years ago I took that line out of my signature, believing that the reason for it no longer existied. Was I wrong? Do Americans still think that they’re alone on the internet, and/or that others should just leave them alone and hang out on their own country specific domains? Maybe I’ve just been hiding out in the highly international world of TWF, although I never found that people in the video fitness community were too US-centric either.

Realistically, though, I don’t really believe that the majority of Americans feel that way. It’s probably just a small minority of small minded people. At least I hope that’s the way it is

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